


memory lane (the road goes on)

by fishpoets



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, M/M, Nostalgia, Photographs, Recovery, References to Depression, introspective, old men still disgustingly in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 13:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishpoets/pseuds/fishpoets
Summary: Hanzo has never liked having his picture taken.





	memory lane (the road goes on)

**Author's Note:**

> very brief mentions of suicidal ideation. nothing graphic but here's your warning if you need it ♡

 

Hanzo is shaken from his reverie when Jesse staggers over and dumps a box full of odds and ends right down next to him on the wooden floor. He straightens with a tired grunt. “Right, that's the bedroom done,” he says, wiping his dusty hands on his jeans.

 

Hanzo eyes the size of the box. “Is all of that for donation?”

 

“Yup. I always figured we live pretty simply, but look at all this crap we still have. Lord knows where half of it even came from.”

 

Humming absently, Hanzo turns his attention away from a plastic wolf figurine he's pretty sure Genji gave him years ago as a joke back to the things in his lap.

 

“Whatcha got there, hon?” Jesse crouches next to him and peers over his shoulder. “Anythin' interesting?”

 

Wordlessly, Hanzo passes him the bundle he'd found buried at the back of the living room cupboard, wrapped in an old red bandana. He watches as Jesse pokes through the items: a portable games system with Hana’s logo on the back, a flashdrive, and an old, broken Overwatch comm – the one Hanzo was given when he first joined, that he still can't find it in him to destroy.

 

The last item is a small wooden box. Hanzo hasn't seen it in years, hasn't used it for its purpose in over twenty, but he knows exactly what it contains – the incense sticks, the small, speckled brown feather.

 

Jesse strokes his thumb over a corner of the box and sets it carefully aside. He picks up the flashdrive between forefinger and thumb and examines it shrewdly.

 

“Huh, think this was mine,” he muses. “Didn't realise we still had it. I wonder if there's still stuff on here.” He waggles his brows at Hanzo. “What d'ya say, darlin'? Fancy a peek?”

 

He's suggesting it mainly to distract Hanzo from the box and the memories it holds. Hanzo couldn't be more grateful to him for it. They set up Jesse's laptop on the kotatsu table and connect the old drive in.

 

Any encrypted mission data Jesse may have once stored here is long-deleted, but the drive is still full of his personal files: e-books and films, a many-gigs folder dedicated to some ancient Mexican soap opera, pictures of animals and memes Jesse must have found amusing at one point or another.

 

And a sub-folder full of photos.

 

 

Hanzo has never liked having his picture taken.

 

Partly it's paranoia. Back with the clan his image was carefully monitored and maintained, photographs limited to austere family portraits and carefully choreographed media attention. Being on the run only served to exacerbate the prickles of constant vigilance at the back of his mind. Any record of his existence was dangerous. Something to be avoided as much as possible.

 

The years of relative safety since have dampened the anxiety to a fraction of what it once was, but it's never left him entirely.

 

Part of it is simply that he dislikes his own face. His brother has often teased him about it, wondering how a man so particular about his appearance, who spends so much time fussing in front of the mirror in the morning can dislike how he looks, but Hanzo has always thought there's something harsh and cold about his face. Photographs make it worse. He dislikes being confronted by the reality of his own existence; likes even less having to see his father's features glowering back at him – though he's older now than his father was when he was killed, and isn't that a strange concept?

 

 

But there’s no point in dwelling on such things, he reminds himself. Shaking free of his thoughts, he opens the folder.

 

The photos are old. The first ones must have been taken shortly after Jesse responded to the Recall. In them, Watchpoint Gibraltar is still in relative disrepair, filled with boxes and cobwebs, more shadows than people. The pictures of those who were there are tentative, as if neither photographer nor subject knew quite how to relate to one another. Winston adjusting his glasses, next to a faintly smiling Tracer. Mercy holding tight to a pile of folders, expression slightly harried. Reinhardt hefting crates in the massive open hangar, alone.

 

Genji, standing up on the cliffs with his arms crossed, his back to the camera, looking out over the white-crested sea.

 

Hanzo lingers on this one a moment before swiping on. Time flows before his eyes. The Watchpoint becomes clean and bright. New faces appear in the photos – faces Hanzo has come to know well, though he hasn't seen some of them in person in years. There's Zenyatta, Fareeha, Mei. Hana and Lúcio, still so young, full of vibrancy and determination for the future.

 

Nestled warm against his side, Jesse chuckles, a grin on his face as they scroll through pictures of team gatherings; training sessions, meetings, parties. Laughter over meals. Jesse has stories and anecdotes for them all. Some of the photos are posed, others carefully considered, almost artful. Most are candid moments of animated faces, slightly blurred and off-centre, Jesse's fingers edging into frame. A record of life as he lived it.

 

They flick from a picture of a campfire on the beach on to the next.

 

Hanzo lets out a noise and leans back from the screen.

 

Logically, he knew there would be pictures of him amongst Jesse's keepsakes. He was there when they were taken, after all, and there have been many of them over the years. And of course Jesse would keep them. Jesse loves him.

 

He just hadn't been prepared to see himself as he was, twenty years gone.

 

He isn't alone in the picture; his brother is with him. Neither are they the focus of the image. The two of them are off to the side, leaning on the rail of the walkway to the comm tower, merely adding perspective to the wide expanse of the Gibraltan sunset behind them.

 

Despite the distance, the tension between them is obvious. Jesse must have taken this not long after Hanzo joined. Genji's relaxed stance is carefully posed, whereas Hanzo's shoulders are held so rigid he can almost feel the sympathy pain of it now.

 

The scowl on his face is awful.

 

"Oh, would you look at that," Jesse breathes, far fonder than the picture deserves – although if he looks at it objectively, even Hanzo could admit there’s a certain beauty to it, the two figures outlined in gold before the pink-washed clouds.

 

Still, he wastes no time clicking to the next – and once again, comes face-to-face with himself. This time it’s a portrait, taken much closer, his body taking full centre-frame. He's dressed for battle in his dark grey gi, looking over his bare shoulder right at the camera. Still scowling, though Hanzo can see the wariness lurking below the fierce glare in his eyes.

 

Jesse melts further into his side. "There's my handsome fella," he sighs, the sound soaked with affection. “This was right before our first week-long mission together, I think. Do you remember? I was bein' a cheeky s.o.b, asked if you were ready for the task ahead. If you could handle it.” He chuckles. “Thought for a moment you were gonna smite me where I stood.”

 

Hanzo swallows. He takes his hands away from the computer and drops them in his lap. He doesn't want to look at himself.

 

Jesse looks over the picture for another minute before he minimises the window. He takes off his reading glasses – the little round ones that several of their old comrades have teased him for relentlessly, but that Hanzo finds oddly alluring – and folds them, tucking them into his shirt pocket.

 

He kisses Hanzo's temple. "'Bout time I started dinner, don't you think?" he says, pushing up from the floor. His knees click as he straightens. He's getting old. They both are. "Any requests?"

 

"Quesadillas," Hanzo replies.

 

Jesse huffs a laugh. "Should've guessed." He leaves the room, passing the dog, who looks up from her doze and thumps her tail on the floor. Jesse spares her a quick rub behind her ears – not enough attention for her liking, so she gets up and trots over to Hanzo, curling up again in the warm spot Jesse vacated.

 

Hanzo sighs and rubs his face, burying his other hand into the thick white fur around her neck. She whuffs a doggy sigh as she rests her head on his thigh and goes back to sleep. Hanzo pets her for a minute, breathing slow and deep, before he steels himself and reopens the window.

 

This time he doesn't linger on any of the photographs. He scrolls swiftly through, giving each one only a passing glance. As time goes by he notices himself appearing with more and more frequency. Never smiling. Standing stiffer than the others, seeming slightly apart from the group even when he’s in the centre of it. But he's there.

 

He forces himself to slow, to look at his own face. He's younger, obviously, with fewer lines in his skin and only the barest touch of grey in his hair and beard, yet somehow the face in the photographs looks older than the one Hanzo sees in the mirror today. Tired and tense, dark circles dragging down his eyes. Did he really frown so often?

 

He's often wondered what exactly Jesse saw in him back in the beginning. He never questioned it aloud, too grateful for their friendship to – as Jesse would say – look a gift horse in the mouth. But he still struggles to understand how he could have been considered good company. He was so miserable. Angry. Directionless, at war with himself. So lost in his own self-loathing.

 

Though, he considers, without all he went through then, he would never have found himself here.

 

The radio's on in the kitchen. Jesse likes to sing along as he cooks, and tonight is no different. He sings, crooning in Spanish, making a meal they'll eat together, and later they'll go to bed together, and when the morning comes they'll wake up, together.

 

The metal circling Hanzo's finger is warm from his skin. He twists the ring around and smiles to himself. It comes easily to him now.

 

The man in these photos from twenty years ago could never have conceived of this, likely would have scoffed at the very idea of it; his contentment, the friends he has, the family. His relationship with his brother better than it's ever been.

 

His ridiculous husband, who knows the worst parts of him, all the hideous, monstrous things he's done, and loves him anyway. Who makes him laugh, who kisses him like he's something precious. His best friend in the world.

 

Eventually he comes to a picture he recognises, and stops again. This one wasn’t taken by Jesse; it’s a group picture, taken to commemorate the overturning of the Petras Act, a couple of years after Hanzo had joined Overwatch officially. Hanzo remembers the occasion clearly; the excitement in the air, the relief, the bustle of trying to arrange everyone on the roof of the Watchpoint so that one of Athena's drones could take a picture of all of them together. He remembers standing next to McCree, his scarf whipping in the briny breeze, watching his brother talk with Angela and Zenyatta to distract himself from the solid heat of Jesse's body so close to his.

 

They had kissed for the first time only a week before. In the picture, Hanzo is very nearly smiling.

 

He's smiling in all the photos from their wedding. In some, he's even laughing.

 

At one point he’d been so sure the rest of his life would be one of sorrow and guilt, so convinced he'd meet his end in violence, forgotten and alone. He'd been so prepared for it, he hadn't known what to do with happiness when it found him.

 

It took him a long time, but… well. Look at him now.

 

“It seems Genji was right, wasn’t he, Kasumi?” he murmurs. “There was some hope for me after all.” The dog ignores him. Hanzo smiles down at her, fondling her fluffy, pointed ear. “I suppose I should thank him… though he will no doubt be insufferable about it.”

 

He looks back at the picture, at the version of himself who had just taken the first tentative footsteps along the path that led him here. “And I suppose I should thank you, too,” he finds himself saying to his younger self, “for following Genji, even though it was the last thing you wanted to do. The very last thing you felt you deserved.”

 

Now the gates are opened, the words come pouring out. “I want to thank you, for listening to him, even though it hurt. Thank you for letting go of your pride for just long enough – enough to trust him when you most needed to, and I--” Heat wells up in his eyes. He lets it fall. There is no one here who will judge him. “I am more grateful to you than I know how to express. I know there were many times you wished to… let go. That death would be easier. Preferable. A more fitting end for you, is what you felt. But I am glad you did not give in, all those times. Because I would not have what I have now if you had. And what I have now...”

 

Soft fur beneath his palm, warm metal on his finger, a beloved voice singing in the next room. His gaze slips across the photograph from his own face to the one next to his: Jesse’s bright smile and sun-brown skin, the open happiness on his handsome features.

 

He has so much to live for.

 

"Hey sugarbean, grub's up." Jesse pokes his head round the door, accompanied with a coil of delicious, mouth-watering scents; fried meat and veggies, sweet onions and hot spices. Jesse snorts as both Hanzo and Kasumi perk up at the smell, but when he sees Hanzo’s face he pauses, concerned.

 

“Han? You alright?”

 

“Yes.” Hanzo wipes under his eye. He waves the laptop to sleep and nudges the dog's nose away from his knee so he can stand.

 

“You've smudged your eyeliner, sweetheart.”

 

Jesse reaches for him. Hanzo stands still and lets him gently clean the smears off his cheek.

 

“Been a while since we reminisced about the old days,” Jesse says. “You sure you're okay?”

 

“Yes, I am,” Hanzo tells him. It's the truth.

 

He leans his cheek into Jesse's palm and circles his own arms around Jesse's hips, looking up into his warm, dark eyes, still so beautiful even after all these years he's spent gazing into them. He used to think it was a beauty that was wasted on him. He doesn’t think so any more.

 

“I am happy.”

 

Jesse smiles softly. A novel of meaning lives unspoken between those three little words, the heavy weight of history, and Jesse knows it. Some of it lives in him, too. It is one of the many ways they understand each other.

 

“Good,” he says quietly. Then with a little mischievous smirk he bends and kisses Hanzo wetly on the nose, tugs him towards the kitchen. “C'mon then, sweetpea. Food's gettin' cold.”

 

Hanzo follows him, heart light in his chest.

 

He is happy. It's as simple and extraordinary as that.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Kasumi is a fluffy white Kishu ken and possibly the most spoiled dog on the planet)
> 
> It's exactly a year since I posted my first mchanzo fic and I'm still nowhere near finished with these guys... sigh
> 
> Honestly I debated about posting this because I mainly wrote it for cathartic purposes, and I'm not sure how IC it is but. shrug. finally getting back into the swing of writing after a long block so I should have some more substantial things to post in the next month, hopefully!


End file.
